Requisition Id 11754 

Overview: 

As a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science national laboratory, ORNL has an extraordinary 80-year history of solving the nation’s biggest problems. We have a dedicated and creative staff of over 6,000 people! Our vision for diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) is to cultivate an environment and practices that foster diversity in ideas and in the people across the organization, as well as to ensure ORNL is recognized as a workplace of choice. These elements are critical for enabling the execution of ORNL’s broader mission to accelerate scientific discoveries and their translation into energy, environment, and security solutions for the nation.

We are seeking a Postdoctoral Research Associate who will support the Electrification and Energy Infrastructure Division (EEID) and the Buildings and Transportation Science Division (BTSD) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).  

Nation-scale building energy modeling researchers create and simulate a model of every U.S. building. This involves urban-scale building energy modeling at the resolution of individual buildings and at the scale of nations to analyze building codes, energy efficiency, demand response, and climate change impacts toward a sustainable and resilient built environment. These activities involve multi-disciplinary collaboration across ORNL, collaborative partnerships and NDAs with over 50 well-known companies, and significant awards on world-class computational resources.

This team achieved world-first simulation of 125.7 million U.S. buildings, public release of 122.9 million building energy models (bit.ly/ModelAmerica ) and has scaled EnergyPlus to over 1 million simulations per hour on supercomputers. In partnership with major organizations, the team is actively improving the data and algorithms of the Automatic Building Energy Modeling (AutoBEM, bit.ly/AutoBEM ) software suite which involves big data processing, data analytics, machine learning, high-performance computing resources, computer vision, and building science to create, model, simulate, validate, and analyze building performance to create software prototypes (e.g. dashboards, bit.ly/virtual_epb ) for actionable use of building data, models, or analysis by specific stakeholders. Over 50 million core-hours in 2023 were used to release an improved Model America v2.0 dataset covering 141.5 million buildings in the U.S. and Puerto Rico. Would you like to be part of the team that analyzes energy use of buildings across the country?

As a full-time Postdoctoral Research Associate your work will consist of assisting in the development and implementation of data organization and software development for scalable use and analysis of business-sensitive data. You will support Distinguished R&D staff in the invention or improvement of innovative algorithms for detection or estimation of building characteristics, validation against known data sources, scalable generation/simulation of buildings using OpenStudio and EnergyPlus, and/or use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques to quantify and improve city-to-nation scales of individual building energy models. As part of R&D, you may be required to manage big data, create, and extend existing software capabilities, develop simple graphic user interfaces, and have the ability to work effectively with a team for effective integration of data, algorithms, and knowledge.

Major Duties/Responsibilities: 

• The development of innovative software techniques, knowledge of building energy modeling, frequent and consistent review of related literature, and collaboration with other team members for the development of technical capabilities, demonstrations, proposals, oral presentations, and publications.
• Proven RDD&D experience in building energy modeling, software development, Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence (ML/AI), or high-performance computing (HPC) resources
• Excellent programming skills, including Python
• Excellent building science or mechanical engineering skills
• Experience with OpenStudio measures and EnergyPlus
• Hands-on skills and experience developing impactful software applications
• Good communication skills for conveying technical material to both scientists and non-scientists in both written and oral presentations
• Self-disciplined work ethic and eagerness to tackle challenging research problems
• The ability to work effectively in a team environment
• Deliver ORNL’s mission by aligning behaviors, priorities, and interactions with our core values of Impact, Integrity, Teamwork, Safety, and Service. Promote diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility by fostering a respectful workplace – in how we treat one another, work together, and measure success.

Basic Qualifications:

• A PhD in Computer Science, Mechanical Engineer, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Mathematics, or a related field completed within the last 5 years

Preferred Qualifications:

• Development or demonstration of urban-scale building energy modeling/analysis
• Demonstration of projects involving big data management (esp. TBs)
• Experience with automation and establishing computational workflows
• Experience with modern programing languages, and Git version control system
• Experience with PyTorch, Jupyter Notebooks, TensorFlow
• Familiarity with developing or debugging software for world-class high performance computing resources
• Familiarity with creation and submission of open-source data (e.g., Zenodo, Kaggle)
• Experience with cloud services s, such as AWS and Docker
• Experience working in Agile/SCRUM teams
• Excellent written and oral communication skills
• Ability to work independently, follow-up on all action items, and complete deliverables in a timely fashion
• Motivated self-starter with the ability to work independently and to participate creatively in collaborative teams across the laboratory 
• Ability to function well in a fast-paced research environment, set priorities to accomplish multiple tasks within deadlines, and adapt to ever changing needs

Applicants cannot have received their Ph.D. more than five years prior to the date of application and must complete all degree requirements before starting their appointment. The appointment length will be for up to 24 months with the potential for extension. Initial appointments and extensions are subject to performance and the availability of funding.

Please submit three letters of reference when applying to this position. You can upload these directly to your application or have them sent to postdocrecruitment@ornl.gov with the position title and number referenced in the subject line.

Instructions to upload documents to your candidate profile:

• Login to your account via jobs.ornl.gov
• View Profile
• Under the My Documents section, select Add a Document

Benefits at ORNL:  

ORNL offers competitive pay and benefits programs to attract and retain talented people. The laboratory offers many employee benefits, including medical and retirement plans and flexible work hours, to help you and your family live happy and healthy. Employee amenities such as on-site fitness, banking, and cafeteria facilities are also provided for convenience.

Other benefits include: Prescription Drug Plan, Dental Plan, Vision Plan, 401(k) Retirement Plan, Life Insurance, Pet Insurance, Generous Vacation and Holidays, Parental Leave, Legal Insurance with Identity Theft Protection, Employee Assistance Plan, Flexible Spending Accounts, Health Savings Accounts, Wellness Programs, Educational Assistance, Relocation Assistance, and Employee Discounts.

If you have difficulty using the online application system or need an accommodation to apply due to a disability, please email: ORNLRecruiting@ornl.gov .

This position will remain open for a minimum of 5 days after which it will close when a qualified candidate is identified and/or hired.

We accept Word (.doc, .docx), Adobe (unsecured .pdf), Rich Text Format (.rtf), and HTML (.htm, .html) up to 5MB in size. Resumes from third party vendors will not be accepted; these resumes will be deleted and the candidates submitted will not be considered for employment.

If you have trouble applying for a position, please email ORNLRecruiting@ornl.gov.

ORNL is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants, including individuals with disabilities and protected veterans, are encouraged to apply.  UT-Battelle is an E-Verify employer.